


Home We'll Go

by vickjawn (awshitzombies)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Dad!Gabe if you squint, Established Relationship, Eye Trauma, Implied Relationships, M/M, Talon Jesse McCree, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:52:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awshitzombies/pseuds/vickjawn
Summary: “Deadeye,” he blubbered as Genji dug his short sword deeper into his upper arm. “That’s what they’re calling him. Agent Deadeye.”~(Or - McCree is captured by Talon, and Hanzo and the rest of the team are in a desperate scramble to get him back before it's too late.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was absolutely 100% fueled and inspired by [this fabulous set of fanart](http://monsterpub.tumblr.com/post/150604635350/so-what-do-you-use-your-degree-in-film-for-oh) by monsterpub. There is also a reference to [another piece of amazing fanart](https://shiraae.tumblr.com/post/150380419720) further into the story. Shoutout to these wonderful artists for inspiring writers like me to get off my ass and create after weeks of nothing. :’)

The only real downside to sleeping in McCree’s room these days, Hanzo decided, was that it was only a few doors down from the medical bay. There was always something going on in there, especially since Overwatch’s ranks were growing every day. More recruits meant more missions, and more missions guaranteed people stumbling back to base in the middle of the night to get bandaged up by an enraged Angela Ziegler. It happened more than Hanzo cared to admit.

Dimly awake now, Hanzo could just about make out the sounds of a heated, almost panicked-sounding argument taking place down the hall between Angela and someone else. Judging by the deep, rasping voice, it had to be Soldier 76.

Cognizance poked him when he realized that if 76 was back, so was McCree. They’d been away on a mission in Canada for nearly a week now, and Hanzo would be lying if he said he hadn’t missed his partner.

He was just sitting up when the call came in - a high pitched beeping over the PA system followed by Athena’s stern voice commanding that he and all other base occupants report to Gibraltar’s meeting room immediately. The suddenness of it made Hanzo’s gut churn with sleep-fueled confusion and worry.

When he finally dressed and stepped into the hallway, he nearly ran into 76, who was shirtless save for his jacket which he had draped across his broad shoulders. As he stormed by, Hanzo caught a glimpse of reddened patches of gauze stretched across his bare torso.

“What’s going on?” he asked, hurrying to catch up with the man. “Where’s McCree?”

The old soldier’s scarred face turned up in a snarl. “Somethin’ tells me we’re about to find out,” he muttered.

They reached the meeting room before Hanzo could ask him what the hell he meant by that. Despite the fact that something was clearly not right, the last thing Hanzo expected to walk into was a hostage negotiation underway.

The single large monitor on the wall was displaying a grainy video broadcasting from the interior of a dimly lit, poorly-kept room with four armed guards stationed within it. Judging by their attire - all black, armored, with helmets and visors to keep up the appearance of anonymous drones - they were with Talon. McCree was sat in the middle of the lot - tied to a chair, stripped down to his undershirt, and with a bag over his head to hide his identity, though Hanzo could recognize those tanned, freckled shoulders anywhere.

“What the hell?” came Hana’s startled, angry cry as she, Lúcio and Mei entered the room. Everyone else had pretty similar reactions as they too appeared and took note of what was happening.

“Everyone settle down,” Winston said awkwardly from his spot near the console. The scientist looked beyond nervous, but Hanzo gave him credit for trying to maintain his composure in the wake of what was quickly turning into a dire situation. “I’m sure this can all be, um, resolved peacefully.”

No one believed him, of course. Hanzo was pretty sure even Winston didn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

Once Overwatch was significantly in an angry panic about what was happening, one of the armed men on the camera feed stepped forward and yanked the bag off McCree’s head. The gunslinger looked just as stunned as everyone else in the Overwatch base did, but as soon as he saw the monitor and took note of the fact he was bound, his expression darkened with a scowl.

“Aw, for fuck’s sake - ” was all he could get out before he was being gagged by another agent.

Once McCree’s words were transformed into angry grunts, the agent closest to the camera turned to face his audience. “Ninety billion United States dollars,” he said simply, robotically.

“That’s more than his bounty,” Torbjörn grumbled under his breath.

The agent merely shrugged. “It’s your choice whether or not you deem Jesse McCree worth it.”

McCree visibly seethed and huffed like an enraged stallion, but the Talon agents paid him no heed. The one doing the talking reached over and grabbed a fistful of his hair, forcing him to lean forward.

“You have twelve hours to comply to our demands,” the man said, “or he will undergo reconditioning.”

The video feed cut just as McCree’s eyes widened, leaving behind a hefty silence that spanned throughout Gibraltar’s lone meeting room. Hanzo didn’t know what sort of reconditioning they were threatening McCree with. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have given the cowman the time of day.

“So,” Lúcio began awkwardly, fidgeting in his seat, “ _that_ just happened.”

Hanzo let out an irritated breath through his nose. “Explain this,” he said, turning to face Soldier 76. “You and McCree were on a mission in Quebec, were you not?”

“Yeah, and shit was fine until Talon agents ambushed us, shot me six times, and kidnapped McCree after bashing him unconscious with a gun.” 76 gestured to his bare bandaged chest for emphasis. “We didn’t expect them to be there for something as simple as a stakeout. There was nothing in that facility worth taking.”

Hanzo huffed, but didn’t dispute it. Talon had been silent for weeks up until now, which suggested that they had been waiting for this kind of opportunity. It was unnerving, to say the least. It could have been any one of them, he thought, casting a quick glance at the youngest members of Overwatch, who were currently wearing nearly identical grim expressions.

“Athena,” Winston said, “can you trace the location that call was coming from, or have they managed to block it?”

“I already have,” the AI replied primly. “The coordinates lead to a remote part of the Namib desert in Africa. Based on the location where Agent McCree was taken and the average speed of one of Talon’s X-34 Airbirds, it is safe to assume that the coordinates were false or put through a scrambler before transmitting.”

“Of course,” Winston said through a sigh. “That would be too easy.”

Hanzo turned to face him. “If we cannot locate where they are holding McCree, we should prepare to comply with their demands.”

Torbjörn huffed and folded his arms across his chest. “And how do you suppose we go about doin’ that? We can’t afford to fix the bathrooms in this place let alone cough up the amount of money Talon’s demandin’.”

Hana popped her gum, humming. “Maybe Lúcio and I can do something,” she offered while the DJ nodded enthusiastically beside her.

Now it was Soldier 76’s turn to scoff. “You kids may be internet famous or whatever you wanna call it, but I severely doubt either of you can pull together ninety billion dollars in twelve hours.”

“What’s the harm in trying?” Hana asked, leaning forward and fixing the older man with a hefty, challenging stare. “You go rob a few banks or whatever it is you do on the weekends, and Lúcio and I will send out an SOS to our fans. I bet you we can do it.”

“Negative,” 76 said through gritted teeth. “That’s not an option.”

“Man, why are you so angry?” Lúcio groused under his breath.

Reinhardt made a reluctant noise and nodded at 76. “Talon will not uphold their end of the bargain even if we do manage to get what they asked for,” he said. “They never do. It’s likely they’ve already begun to torture Jesse.”

Hanzo’s frown deepened while his guts churned with fear. “But we - ”

“Look,” 76 snapped, scowling at him, “we’ve been through this shit before. All the money in the world won’t be enough to keep them from screwin’ with McCree in some way. They’ll turn him into a ticking time bomb.”

“And if they manage to break him because we failed to comply?” Hanzo countered. “Stopping him once he’s been fully converted could prove to be even more of a challenge.”

“He’s hardly in the shape he was ten years ago,” 76 said flatly. “We’re lucky they nabbed him out of everyone here.”

“You underestimate him,” Hanzo growled, nearly rising to his feet as his anger threatened to boil over. “You always have.”

“Enough!” Angela snapped so suddenly that everyone promptly shut their mouths. “I will not tolerate fighting while one of our own is in danger. If we’re not going to give in to their demands, we need to figure out where to start looking for Jesse.”

“I’m open for suggestions,” 76 growled, folding his arms across his chest. “Talon has bases and hideouts all over the US - never mind how many they might have on foreign soil. They could have taken McCree to any one of ‘em by now.”

“We can fly back to Quebec and start the search there,” Lena suggested, trying to sound optimistic. “I’ll refuel the airbus and get us back up there right quick.”

76 shook his head again. “Not quick enough.”

Hanzo shut his eyes as the group continued to toss ideas back and forth. They wouldn’t work, he knew. There wasn’t enough time to try half of them.

A hand fell on his shoulder, coaxing him out of his troublesome thoughts. Angela stood next to him, her big eyes creased with concern.

“We will get him back, Hanzo,” she said softly, knowingly. Hanzo and McCree hadn’t quite been keeping their relationship a secret - they were sharing a room, for heaven’s sake - so it didn’t surprise him that she and the others were treating him like he’d just lost something important. They weren’t wrong.

The meeting room was suddenly too small with everyone there talking. Hanzo made for the roof with every intent to drink himself into a stupor.

Genji found him there hours later, having only just learned of the news after coming back from his own mission. He said nothing, just sat down next to his brother as he continued to drink, until the sky grew light with the sunrise.

~

Twelve hours came and went with alarming swiftness. Contacting Talon to ask for more time proved fruitless, and they made no move to communicate with Overwatch when it became apparent that they didn’t have what they’d asked for.

Unable to sleep that night knowing that his partner was in terrible agony and that there was nothing he could do about it, Hanzo dragged himself back into the meeting room and numbly tried calling back the number Talon had first used to contact them. He wasn’t sure why; he severely doubted the line was even still in service.

The sleep-deprived part of him was adamant, though. That part of him had a terrible idea, a proposal that Talon would be foolish to pass up, but the small rational side of his brain cautioned him against it. So much could go wrong. But McCree was worth the risk.

The call rang and rang and rang, as he predicted. Hanzo had nearly dozed off when suddenly a woman with purple hair and skin and startling yellow eyes flickered into focus. Hanzo stared at her, momentarily wondering if he was dreaming.

“Hello,” the woman cooed through a thick French accent, giving him a bored little wave. She blinked and glanced around, frowning. “Hm. I expected a bigger crowd. Then again, Talon didn’t exactly nab one of the more indispensable members of Overwatch, did they?”

He blinked up at her, exhaustion blinding him. “Um,” he began eloquently, “I’m sorry, who…?”

The woman tsked and sat back in her seat. “Je suis désolé, most never see me when I am not staring down the sight of my rifle. My name is Widowmaker.”

Hanzo knew the name, but only the bare basics. “You work for Talon,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust.

“Indeed.”

“Where is Jesse McCree?” he hissed, rising to his feet. His legs shook with the effort, but he ignored it as his anxiety and rage began to take over. “We have been trying to contact you for the past six hours to ask for more time.”

“Did they or did they not explain to you their demands in their first call? It’s your own fault if you didn’t come up with the ransom.”

“The amount you asked for was ridiculous! Nobody could have come up with - ”

“Not my problem.” Widowmaker’s smirk widened, though her eyes remained dull even in the bright lighting on her end. “It’s your cowboy friend’s problem now. Don’t worry,” she cooed, noticing the gaunt look on Hanzo’s face, “I made sure to tell him not to get his hopes up for a rescue.”

Hanzo clenched his fists so tightly that his nails threatened to puncture the skin on his palm. “I have another proposition for you in lieu of the ransom,” he began quietly, trying to keep his anger from spilling over into his tone. “Are you familiar with the Shimada clan?”

Widowmaker hummed. “Talon has reached out to them before in the past,” she admitted. “They were once a great empire.”

Hanzo nodded. “Give McCree back to us,” he said, “and I will arrange to have the Shimada clan join forces with Talon.”

To his displeasure, Widowmaker chuckled. “I said that they _were_ once a great empire. These days, they’re lucky if they find work in Hanamura, never mind the rest of the world.”

He bristled despite knowing she was right. He was mostly responsible for the clan’s current state of disarray, but it was only now that he was beginning to regret it. “It would not take much to build it back up,” he argued. “I know Talon would not regret the decision to have the Shimada clan in their ranks.”

Widowmaker merely smirked. “Interesting,” she mused, sharp eyes slicing through him. He hated how easily she could do that. “You care for this American. And yet you did nothing to prevent us from turning him into a machine loyal to Talon.”

He recoiled, bearing his teeth in a snarl as anger began to swell in him anew. “I swear, if you harmed him…!”

“ _I_ did not touch a hair on his head. Ah, but my time is limited.” Her sharp eyes darted to the empty doorway behind him. “I highly suggest you call the others in. They won’t want to sleep through what I am about to show you.”

With a trembling hand, Hanzo flicked the silent alarm on the console. It took all of a minute for those currently on base to appear, some clad in their pajamas, most wide awake and more than a little on edge to receive yet another mandatory call for a meeting in the middle of the night.

Lena gave a startled gasp at the sight of Widowmaker on the massive screen. “Amélie!” she exclaimed, rushing forward to stand next to Hanzo. “Did you call us?”

Widowmaker blinked down at her, expression blank. “It was he who contacted Talon,” she explained, nodding to Hanzo, who resolutely did not meet anyone else’s questioning gaze. “Which is just as well because I have something to show you.” She leaned forward, hand hovering over the console just below the camera. “I’m sure you’re all wondering about the state of your cowboy friend courtesy of your inaction.”

Hanzo expected the worst, and he wasn’t wrong. Clips of what had been a live feed from several hours ago flickered to life, all of them timestamped. As Reinhardt had predicted, the torture had begun only hours after they’d first gotten the call from Talon with their demands.

The camera was facing downwards on McCree where he lay strapped to an examination table. He was completely naked, and as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, his mouth was being held open by a medical stirrup, as was his right eye. Anonymous hands clad in surgical gloves were all around him, slowly sticking needles filled with who knows what into his skin as he jerked and tried desperately not to cry out against the assault.

Before anyone could even guess at what the chemicals and drugs were, the scene changed to a couple minutes later, if the timestamp in the upper left hand corner was to be trusted. The camera was zoomed in on McCree’s sweaty, wild expression as the surgeons were in the process of removing his eye. It popped out of the socket with an almost audible noise, and McCree couldn’t hold in his screams any longer, even with the cocktail of drugs clogging his system.

Hana gave a choking noise and had to look away, as did Lúcio and Mei-Ling. Hanzo kept his eyes glued to the screen - punishment for allowing McCree to suffer like this, he reasoned.

The scene shifted again, this time showing some quick clips of the surgeons drilling into the side of McCree’s head. Before anyone could adequately freak out about that, there scene abruptly changed to them sticking a thick needle into the corner of McCree’s other eye, which had also been propped open now.

Hanzo knew there were ways of changing a person’s mentality without actually having to do brain surgery. He had seen it performed in old horror movies and psychological thrillers, heard whispers of it being performed on people by his own clan years ago. The results weren’t always desired, but Hanzo had no doubt that Talon had perfected the method, using tools specifically designed to do the terrible deed.

The clips combined amounted to less than a minute of video - long enough to traumatize the crew and yet too short to really tell them anything about Talon’s methods or what exactly they’d done to McCree. Hanzo was sure that there were instances just as brutal they hadn't included.

“Frankly, I am not surprised you didn’t try to save him,” Widowmaker mused through the heavy silence that followed the end of the video. “Overwatch was never quick to come to the aid of one of their own.”

Half of the room’s older occupants flinched and averted their gazes, ashamed.

“Amélie, please,” Lena began quietly, but Widowmaker hissed, cutting her off.

“No one came for Amélie,” she said lowly, “and now McCree will live with that same knowledge - that no one cared enough to come for him.”

“But we _did_ come for you,” Lena tried desperately. “We came as soon as we could!”

Widowmaker leaned in close, her eyes squinted with all the anger of someone abandoned. “Not soon enough,” she hissed, then cut the call.

Hanzo’s sleeve caught fire as the dragons threatened to burst forth from him, drawn to the surface by the pure rage surging through his body. The others leaped away from him, startled and strung out with their own varying degrees of anxiety. It was Genji who moved forward to take his brother by the shoulders and slowly walk him backwards until they hit the wall.

Despite their still ever-present differences, Genji’s presence was enough to calm the spirits, to calm Hanzo. “They will not get away with this,” he said quietly in Japanese. Hearing his native tongue further soothed Hanzo, and the promise of exacting revenge on the people who hurt his partner made his lip curl with pleasure.

~

Genji asked him later what he offered Widowmaker, though his tone suggested he knew exactly what it was.

He didn’t blame him, nor did he judge him for it. It was Hanzo who shook his head, who cursed McCree and his stupid ability to make everyone - even someone as cold and undeserving as Hanzo - fall in love with him so easily.

“I hate him,” he grumbled, earning a guffaw from his brother. “How dare he.”

“Jesse has always been very good at making people love him,” Genji told him. “He’s a real charmer.”

Hanzo huffed, quickly sobering. “Too bad he couldn’t charm his way out of this,” he muttered.

~

Athena still couldn’t trace where the calls had come from. Angela, Winston or Mei-Ling couldn’t come up with a conclusive guess as to what kind of mind-altering drugs and chemicals the Talon surgeons had given McCree, either, though they were still in the process of making a list to cross-check. Hanzo listened to them hypothesize and took some solace in the fact that they were already making preparations to reverse any and all the damage once they got McCree back.

When, they kept saying. They _were_ going to get him back. It was just going to be a while.

Unfortunately, Hanzo was as impatient as he was pessimistic. The days passed with maddening sluggishness, and the nights were even worse. The room that he and McCree shared - small and not really ideal for two grown men - seemed far too big now, their bed cold and bare, even when Hanzo finally gave in and dragged one of McCree’s old serapes out of the closet to wrap himself in.

It still smelled like him, he mused. But that wouldn’t last forever.

During the day, he researched everything he could on Talon, hypothesized where they might possibly choose to set up shop for a while and made preparations to check each individual place out. Most of Overwatch readily agreed to help him, much to his relief. Money and resources were limited, but McCree was important to everyone.

“Whatever it takes,” Fareeha assured him, leveling him with a determined stare that filled him with renewed vigor.

With everyone already spread thin in the search, Hanzo used his own meager funds to catch a flight back to Quebec to investigate the area where McCree had been kidnapped. Lúcio and 76 tagged along, too. Lúcio was there for support and an extra pair of eyes, he claimed, offering Hanzo a bold smile that he wished he could return. Hanzo appreciated the much-needed boost of optimism.

On the other hand, Hanzo couldn’t help but wonder why 76 bothered to come as well. The soldier retraced what happened, giving Hanzo a better idea of what transpired in the attack, but still no definitive answers.

“He feels bad about it,” Lúcio said, shrugging. The mere idea almost made Hanzo laugh, but Lúcio assured him he was serious. “He might be a grumpy motherfucker most of the time, but he does care about most of us. You should’ve seen him freakin’ out when Hana’s MEKA exploded for the first time.” The young man flashed a dazzling grin. “The look on his face when she just hopped out of it! Wish I’d had my phone.”

“I’m blind, not deaf,” 76 barked from the other end of the alleyway. “Stay focused.”

“Sure thing, Pops.”

76’s shoulders hunched in a bit, but he made no remarks about the unusual - if fitting, Hanzo had to admit - nickname.

Another two hours of searching turned up nothing substantial, and if that wasn’t enough to drag Hanzo down again, they got a call on the way back to the airport that two of the other five locations Hanzo had mapped out were dead ends.

“Don’t worry, love,” Lena told him over the phone. “We’re on our way to the other locations now. We’ll find somethin’ - I’m sure of it.”

Hanzo thanked her, then hung up, his arm falling limply to his side. A numbness was creeping in on him again. Every time it happened, he found it harder and harder to shake off, harder and harder to believe the words of encouragement his teammates were offering him.

“We’ll find him, man,” Lúcio told him quietly, giving him a small nudge. “And hey, have some faith in ol’ Eastwood, too. I bet he didn’t go quietly.”

That made Hanzo’s lips twist with a near smile. “No,” he agreed, “he probably didn’t.”

~

The first actual glimpse of McCree came nearly a week later during a Talon-instigated raid at an armory on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

Hanzo hadn’t been permitted to go investigate the aftermath. He had been running himself ragged - enough so that he actually passed out the night before in the middle of a meeting. Angela had more or less locked him in her med bay until he was able to stand on his own. That was quite possibly the longest four hours of his life, and he had been sleeping through most of it.

Unfortunately Talon was gone by the time Overwatch flew out to the armory. The only evidence they had aside from the remnants of stolen tech and weaponry was surveillance footage, which only recorded the first couple of minutes of the break in before it was shut down by the assailants.

Hanzo sat with the rest of the team in the meeting room and watched the chaos unfold, starting with the silent arrival of a black mist that drifted from underneath one of the doors. The guards stationed there took no notice until the mist formed the shape of a man and snapped their necks, one right after the other. The second man had only a second to let out a shout before he was silenced alongside his partner.

Across the table, 76 began to rumble like an angry dog. “Reaper,” he hissed.

Hanzo had heard stories about a being known as Reaper - a wraith-like creature with the ability to consume a man’s soul. If Hanzo hadn’t witnessed this in action on a mission months ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.

The video went on; Reaper snagged the key card off one of the dead guards and used it to open the door he’d come under. Another man stepped into the hall, his gait stiff and nearly robotic. The video quality was less than stellar, and combined with the shoddy lighting in the hallway, it was nigh impossible to identify the man.

But there was no mistaking the way he looked up at the camera, whipped out his revolver, and popped one bullet into it, ending the recording.

“There’s more,” Genji supplied, soft tone still sounding deafening in the otherwise silent room. “Athena, play the next clip, please.”

The screen came to life again, this time showing the interior of the amory - a massive warehouse filled with carefully marked crates and boxes. Armed guards were lazily patrolling the aisles, oblivious to the intruders now lurking in the base.

Reaper and the other man came into view in the top lefthand corner of the screen. The man’s right eye began to glow a menacing red, and a split second later he was fanning the hammer on his revolver, bringing six guards to their knees with a bullet planted neatly in their skulls. Reaper took care of the remaining three with three quick blasts from his shotguns. In a span of thirty seconds, the warehouse was up for the taking.

Reaper drifted off to assess the goods, and the man started picking off the remaining security cameras with the same liquid-fast reflexes that he’d used to pick off the men. The last camera to go was the one recording the footage. The man looked up at it through his glowing red eye, giving the camera a perfect view of his familiar face. Without so much as a blink, McCree popped a bullet into it, ending the recording and sending the meeting room into another heavy silence.

“If Talon has the ability to completely rewrite a person, then they absolutely have the tech to wipe security footage,” Lena pointed out quietly, seething in her seat. Hanzo had never seen her looking so angry. “Bloody pricks wanted us to see this.”

Reinhardt cursed. “As if using one of our own against us isn’t enough, they have to rub it in our faces that we’ve failed him.” He heaved a massive, shuddering sigh and visibly wilted. “It’s Amélie all over again. How many more of us will fall to Talon like this?”

“It does not matter,” Hanzo snapped, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “We need to figure out how to reverse it once we manage to bring him home. That way, even if Talon does manage to get more of us, we will know how to combat it.”

Angela started nodding halfway through his little speal. “It’s only been two days," she mumbled, wide eyes staring through the table in front of her. "It took them weeks to subdue Amélie. Their methods of breaking people must have advanced over the years.”

“Advanced.” Torbjörn scoffed. “It ain’t some newfangled medical procedure, Angie. We’re talkin’ torture - plain and simple.”

“I’m sure it’s a combination of both,” Angela replied stiffly. “I’ll start brushing up on what we know about Amélie.”

The others began to file out of the room, the air heavy with defeat. It made Hanzo lightheaded and nauseous, but he couldn’t let it get to him.

Instead, he hurried out into the hall and caught Soldier 76 before he could disappear. “Who is Amélie?” he demanded.

76 scowled at him and yanked his arm out of his grasp. “Widowmaker.”

“I know that. I mean, what’s her story?”

The old soldier looked ready to tell him to piss off, but a sigh came out of him abruptly. “She was the wife of one of Overwatch’s top agents, Gérard Lacroix,” he muttered. “Talon couldn’t get to him, so they kidnapped Amélie, brainwashed her, and allowed her to be rescued so that she could kill Gerard two weeks later.” He scowled down at the ground. “Now there’s only Widowmaker left.”

Hanzo exhaled, trying to steady his pulse. “You believe they were going to do the same to McCree if we had come up with the ransom,” he said quietly. That explained his behavior after the first call from Talon, then.

“I know it.” 76 turned away, gaze downcast and jaw tight. “If there’s one thing Talon’s good at, it’s turning people against each other.”

“McCree wouldn’t. You’re underestimating him again.”

76 just offered him a tired, semi-blank stare. “I really hope I am,” he said.

~

Days continued to trickle by. Hanzo ran himself ragged looking for clues as to where Talon might possibly be keeping McCree, but they were very good at cleaning up after themselves wherever they went. It was maddening knowing that had they been just an hour earlier, they might have found something, someone. Anything.

At one high point, he and Genji managed to capture a Talon employee and squeeze some drops of information out of him. “Deadeye,” he blubbered as Genji dug his short sword deeper into his upper arm. “That’s what they’re calling him. Agent Deadeye.”

“Why?” Hanzo asked, feigning confusion.

“I-I dunno, they said he’s got this - this power to lock onto people. Talon was working on harnessing it with tech or something. Look, I-I’m just an intern, man, they don’t tell me anything!”  
  
Angela threatened their lives when they returned to base covered in someone else’s blood. Despite the multitudes of disappointed looks from his fellow agents and a stern “Overwatch does not tolerate torture as a method of interrogation” lecture from Ana and Reinhardt, Hanzo was not remorseful. He relayed their only bit of information and watched as Ana’s eyes lit up.

“They were drilling into his head in that clip,” the old sniper pointed out, turning to Angela. “No doubt installing tech.”

“I can handle that,” she said confidently. “Brain surgery with or without tech is simple enough these days - unless it’s directly wired into his nervous system,” she added hastily, wilting. “That - that could be a problem.”

“One step at a time,” Ana told her, patting her on the shoulder. “And whatever comes, we’ll handle it as a team.”

Angela, only a little watery-eyed and tight-lipped, agreed with a firm nod, and for the first time in a while, Hanzo felt a tiny bit of himself swell with hope.

~

Their breakthrough came from what was quite possibly the most unlikely source. Reaper sent them a message in the wee hours of the morning nearly two weeks later demanding an audience - “One or all of you, I don’t care,” he growled - at a specific set of coordinates. Half the squad - Hanzo, Soldier 76, Ana, and Genji - went to meet him in person, the other half remained nearby in case it was all a trick. A very bold, very unlikely trick, Hanzo thought the closer they got to the meeting zone.

Reaper seemed startled to see Ana and 76 striding towards him, but he didn’t back down. “In four days, they’re sending McCree to a warehouse in Memphis for some data extraction,” he told them as soon as they were within earshot. He tossed Hanzo a small drive - one gigabyte's worth of data, no doubt containing only the necessary coordinates to said warehouse. “You’ll have to find a way to disable the tech in his brain if you want him back to normal.”

“Why tell us this?” 76 demanded, asking the one question everyone had on their minds. “What do you want in return?”

Reaper remained silent. Hanzo too found it hard to believe he wanted nothing out of this.

Ana, of course, figured it out first. “You don’t like it either,” she guessed. “You don’t like what he’s become. What they turned him into.”

Hanzo had an almost absurd feeling that the infamous spectre was blushing angrily beneath the mask. “No,” he said, leaving it up to them whether or not he was in agreement or protesting the accusation.

He turned to leave, but Ana reached out, barking a desperate, “Wait! Gabriel - ”

“Gabriel is dead.”

Ana sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Reaper,” she stressed, “it’s clear that there’s still bits of the old Gabriel in you. You don’t have to flee. Please. Come home.”

The request made several people in the group uncomfortable, Hanzo included, but nobody openly protested save for Reaper. “It’s too late,” he rasped. “Too late for me, too late for Amélie. But it’s not for McCree.”

That said, he dissolved into the nighttime air, drifting away on the breeze. Ana shuddered, swayed for a second until 76 reached out and steadied her.

~

The coordinates on the drive did indeed bring them to a warehouse on the outskirts of Memphis. There was nothing substantial inside it save for the occasional mostly-worthless bits of tech. It bugged Hanzo, and again he started to doubt Reaper’s word, but it was their only lead. They didn’t have a choice but to believe it.

Hanzo, Hana in her MEKA, Lúcio, and Soldier 76 set up shop inside it several hours before McCree’s intended arrival with Lena and Ana on standby in case it really was a trap. They cleared the security personnel out, then hunkered down for the longest wait of their lives.

Around two in the morning, McCree hacked into the main door’s key reader system and stepped inside. He flicked the batch of switches next to the threshold, flooding the warehouse with flickering fluorescent light.

The first thing Hanzo noticed was that they cut McCree’s hair. Gone was his tangled mane, replaced by a shorter cut similar to Soldier 76’s. As if that wasn’t enough to throw Hanzo for a loop, they had also shaved his beard off, leaving his skin smooth and bare to the world. His cowboy hat and attire were missing, replaced by the same dark clothes and armor Talon agents typically wore. The only part of him bearing any resemblance to the man he cared for was the Peacekeeper in his right hand, still shiny and equipped with that ridiculous spur on the handle.

McCree took a step deeper inside, then stopped as his right eye lit up with a menacing shade of red. Though Hanzo and the others hadn’t exactly been hiding, it was still a shock when McCree zeroed in on all of them almost immediately.

“Hey, Eastwood!” Lúcio exclaimed, almost making Hanzo jump. The young man didn’t have to force a smile or his ecstatic tone; he was genuinely happy to see their friend. “We finally caught up with ya! Been awhile, huh? How’re you doin’?”

For a tense moment, no one moved. Then McCree slowly switched his gun to his other hand and raised his free one to the side of his head. There was a strange piece of tech sticking lying flat on his temple - flat and smooth with a small, shiny red gem slightly raised on its surface. He touched the tip of his index finger to it.

"Overwatch agents have infiltrated the building,” he began. God, they’d even managed to tame his accent, Hanzo thought, growing colder. “Song, Shimada, Morrison and Correia dos Santos. Please advise."

Hanzo and the others recoiled, though they shouldn't have been surprised that McCree was spitting off their names like it was common knowledge amongst the Talon ranks. Of course McCree would have told Talon everything he knows about Overwatch. That was probably the first thing they did with him the second they had him. Honestly, it was a miracle they hadn’t gathered their forces and stormed the Gibraltar base yet.

McCree paused, listening, then cracked a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “Not a problem,” he said, then lowered his hand, cutting the call to his superiors.

Without preamble, he fired his Peacekeeper, shattering the protective windshield on Hana’s MEKA. She let out a shriek that was half panicked and half outraged, and then all hell broke loose.

Hanzo scrambled out of the way of another round of bullets McCree fired at the lot of them. Hana threw up her shields while 76 returned fire, but McCree was so much faster now - forcibly trimmed down so that he could dodgeroll more than once in a span of ten seconds. He easily avoided 76’s gunfire and rolled behind a batch of pallets.

All done with a blank expression, Hanzo noted from his new position on the top of some heavy duty shelving units. It was clear McCree didn’t recognize anyone as his friends, even with Hana and Lúcio trying their hardest to get through to him with desperate words.

Hanzo notched an arrow and drew back, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The others danced around McCree, trying and failing to flank him, not knowing what they could do to stop their comrade without hurting him. Hanzo was in the same boat, but found out too late when he had a clear shot and came to the sudden realization that he couldn’t take it.

McCree’s head snapped around, his wild, red eye locking with Hanzo’s. For less than half a second, Hanzo had hope that something stirred within the man’s mind, that he would remember him and cease long enough for one of them to get through to him.

Foolish, Hanzo thought as he failed to dodge the bullet McCree fired at him. It buried itself in his shoulder, sending him sprawling into a hissing heap on the shelves, dangerously close to the edge. The wound burned, but not as much as the fact that once they got McCree back - and they _would_ , goddammit, he was sure of it now - he was going to hate himself for what he’d done. That fact hurt Hanzo in ways no weapon could.

His senses returned to him just in time to hear Lúcio let out a vicious, “Get back!” quickly followed by the sound of something big crashing through something solid. Hanzo dragged himself back to reality just in time to witness McCree yanking himself out of the crippled remnants of another shelving unit. A bunch of crates and boxes had fallen atop him, but McCree didn’t appear injured - just winded and angry.

“McCree, please,” Lúcio was begging as the man rose to his feet, “I know you’re still in there, man. You gotta fight it!”

McCree fired a shot at him, which only missed because Lúcio had his speed boost active and was able to skate safety behind Hana. McCree fanned the hammer, sending the rest of his bullets into Hana’s shields, quickly bringing them down.

Before McCree could reload and unleash more hell, 76 stormed forward and attempted to knock some sense into him with the butt of his rifle, but McCree managed to snag the gun with one hand and land a punch to 76’s gut in one swift motion, knocking the air out of the older man. A boot to his gut brought him down with another heavy expulsion of air.

Had the situation been less dire, Hanzo would have been impressed by the counter attack.

The air changed - a spike of electricity that was both familiar and terrifying to Hanzo. He watched, rapt, as McCree’s stance changed and his one eye began to glow thanks to the tech now implanted in the side of his head.

But that wasn’t all. The strange device on his spine - which Hanzo and the others had all assumed to be part of Talon’s typical over-the-top wardrobe - began to unfold and light up with the same menacing shade of red as his eye. Hanzo watched with growing terror as four sets of mechanical arms clicked and clacked to life, each wielding a loaded revolver in their shiny silver clutches.

McCree said nothing as he and the arms took aim at everyone in his sight. 76 was trying to scramble to cover while D.Va moved in front of a panicked Lúcio in a last-ditch attempt to shield him from McCree’s wrath, but her MEKA couldn’t stand up to six shots from six revolvers all at once.

Driven by pure panic, Hanzo jerked to his feet, drew his bow, and shakily fired an arrow into McCree’s upper arm. McCree snarled through gritted teeth and yanked the arrow out of his arm like it was a minor inconvenience instead of a legit injury. Then he was moving, climbing up the shelves faster than any human could thanks to his new limbs, and seizing Hanzo by the neck. A metal limb lashed out and wrenched the bow from his hands while another came up to grab his wrist so tightly that it was a wonder that it didn’t snap in its grasp.

“Jesse,” Hanzo gasped as he was lifted solidly off his feet. Air was suddenly scarce, but he didn’t stop pleading with the other man, begging him to wake up, even as McCree leveled one of his guns at his head.

“Do you remember,” Hanzo choked out, “how we got together? You - you were such a fool.”

McCree’s lip curled back in a snarl as he increased his grip on his throat. Somewhere below them, 76 shouted something, and a second later McCree was yelping as a Helix rocket blast nailed him in the back. It didn’t seem to do anything more than knock him to his knees, but it was enough of a blow to force him to release Hanzo.

Hanzo fell on his ass, coughing yet undeterred. “A handful of us were on a mission,” he said, trying and failing to clear his throat. “We were on backup call. Not needed. You suggested we pass the time by making out. I agreed.” He sputtered out a wet, semi-hysterical laugh. “The look on your face. I thought you were going to pass out.”

McCree was moving again, his robotic limbs sparking a little but still functional as they reached for Hanzo once more. Hanzo let himself be manhandled onto his knees.

“I think I was just as surprised as you were when we kissed again after that,” he went on, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt as McCree pointed his Peacekeeper at his temple. “And again and again. I was surprised how easy it was, just being with you. It still surprises me how much I like you.”

Distantly he heard the others frantically calling his name, worried that they couldn’t see him or McCree up on the top shelf. Hanzo ignored them, too transfixed on the shifting expression on McCree’s face.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find you in time,” Hanzo said quietly as he reached out and laid his hand over the heated flesh of McCree’s forearm. “But it’s not too late to fix this. Come home with me, Jesse. Please.”

McCree hesitated. Lowered his gun half an inch. The arms on his spine did the same.

Before either of them could act, the shelves shifted beneath them, groaned as they were knocked over. Hanzo had only a split second to get his footing and leap from the falling unit, but that still wasn’t enough to spare him a painful impact. His one ankle twinged in protest, but he was able to scramble up and away from the rest of the falling debris without further injury.

The same could not be said for McCree, who despite having six limbs, wasn’t able to grasp onto anything as he fell twenty feet onto the cold concrete floor of the warehouse. The noise of agony he let out on impact was jarring, but not as much as the infuriated roar he let out as he viciously clawed his way out of the rubble. His eyes were wild again, his teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. Any progress Hanzo had made with him was gone thanks to his friends trying to help.

He lunged, propelled by his arms, and latched himself onto the front of Hana’s MEKA before she could throw up her shields. Without the windshield there to protect her and her guns being pushed out of the way by one set of arms, it was easy for McCree to reach inside the mech and pull Hana out by her neck. Obviously the mech wasn’t designed to work that way; there was no missing the awful sound of one of Hana’s legs snapping as she was viciously yanked free.

She screamed. McCree drew his Peacekeeper, aimed it at her head.

Hanzo’s tattoo flashed as the dragons surged forth, their massive jaws snapping as they roared towards Hana and McCree. They consumed both of them, but McCree was the only one who let out an awful wail as the dragons moved through him, destroying the parts of him that weren’t worthy in the spirits’ eyes.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Both Hana and McCree had fallen to the ground, but only Hana had made it out of the dragon’s wrath completely unscathed.

“Fuck,” Hanzo heard 76 snarl from behind him.

The spell broken, everyone rushed forward to assess the damage. McCree lay in a writhing, screaming heap on the ground, blind with agony as the mechanical bits of him sparked and malfunctioned inside and out. His legs thrashed uncontrollably as his robotic limbs struggled and failed to right themselves.

Despite her broken leg, Hana was trying to get the man to calm down, gripping his face in her hands and whimpering gentle words to him. He heard none of it, batted her hands away as he clawed at the tech on the side of his head. His mechanical eye was bleeding at the corners, Hanzo noted numbly. God knows what else was wrong inside him now thanks to his foolish decision to unleash the dragons on him.

“McCree,” 76 was saying, trying to sound calm. “Jesse, goddammit, listen. You’re gonna be okay - Lúcio, get over here with that healin’ gun of yours!”

The young medic was already on it, aiming his amplifier at the thrashing man. Hanzo could hear the healing beat thumping out of it, could feel the twinge of pain in his ankle start to fade, but for Jesse, the music didn’t seem to do anything. He probably couldn’t hear it over the sound of his own screams.

There came the distant sound of a rifle discharging, quickly followed by silence as McCree went limp, eyelids fluttering shut. Buried neatly in the side of his neck was a familiar sleep dart.

For a second, no one moved. Then 76 was sitting back on his haunches and letting out a heavy sigh. “Thank you, Ana,” he said.

Their comms crackled in unison. “Got you covered,” Ana replied quietly.

~

Later on, Angela told Hanzo that he would have made things easier for her if he’d just shot McCree.

Hanzo was already aware of it; 76 had given him the same “what the hell were you thinking?” speech on the way back to Gibraltar. The trip had been the worst flight of Hanzo’s life, and not just because of that. Ana only had one shot of her sleep serum and it wore off within the first half hour, which left McCree thrashing around in the gurney he’d been strapped into.

(“They cut my hair,” he had choked out - the first legitimate statement out of his mouth that wasn’t fueled by brainwashing. And of course it was about something as stupid as his hair.)

In truth, Hanzo hadn’t known what the dragons would do to McCree when he summoned them. They knew McCree, had bonded with him just as Hanzo had over these past couple of months. He trusted them to do what they thought was right, and they had, he stated to both 76 and Angela. In the end, they couldn’t argue with a dragon.

“Most of the tech inside him is fried,” Angela explained to everyone hours later when she could finally catch a breath. “The good news is I was able to remove the pieces in his brain without issue. That goes for the robotic eye as well. Based on the drug test I performed, I’m also fairly confident that we can reverse and counter the mind-altering chemicals Talon used on Jesse.”

Hanzo felt lightheaded. “That’s...wonderful,” he mumbled, slouching in his seat. Ana reached over to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

“What about that weird shit on his back?” Lúcio asked, wiggling his fingers in a crude mimicry of McCree’s new limbs. “The spider arms or whatever.”

“That’s the bad news,” Angela said through an exhausted sigh. “It’s so entwined with his spinal cord and nervous system that I don’t think I should risk trying to remove it.”

Hanzo echoed her sigh with a heavy one of his own. McCree would not be happy about that, he knew, but it could be worse. It could be so much worse. “Other than that, he will recover?” he asked.

“I have faith, yes. Physically, he will be fine.” The doctor frowned at the floor, suddenly appearing very much the young lady that she was. “Unfortunately, I’m not the right kind of doctor to tackle the kinds of mental trauma Jesse has - of which I’m sure he'll have plenty. One doesn’t just walk away from extreme reconditioning without some damage.”

“Well, that’s where the rest of us come in, yeah?” Hana piped up, grinning confidently. “You did all the hard work. Leave it to us to shake him out of any funks. We’ll have him back to normal in no time.”

A smile finally graced Angela’s features. “I have the utmost faith in that, too.”

And honestly, so did Hanzo.

~

While the surgery to remove all of the intrusive tech inside McCree sans the implant on his spine took just under six hours, it was a few days before McCree came back to them mentally. It was to be expected, but it was still terrible. In some ways, it was worse than not knowing where he was.

For the first couple of days after the surgery, he was confined to a bed within an old interrogation room - comfortable but alone and essentially on lockdown. Athena could monitor him through the multiple security cameras, and he was also able to be seen through a one-way glass window in the wall. Having access to Angela’s healing technology meant that he was on his feet soon enough. The chemicals in his system were either countered by other drugs Angela had in her arsenal or bled out of him naturally over time. Every day he showed signs of progress, Angela told them. 

Watching him through the one-way glass felt invasive - he wasn’t some creature to be ogled at, reconditioning be damned - so Hanzo stayed away, relying instead on the others to tell him how his partner was fairing. All signs pointed to him being on the way back to normal.

“When can we actually go talk to him?” Hana asked Angela on the third day.

“He’s still a little disoriented,” the good doctor reported. “He knows where he is and why, but he’s not at a hundred percent yet. I don’t want to overwhelm him.”

It made sense, Hanzo admitted, and he certainly wanted to make sure McCree was comfortable before they visited, but damned if he wasn’t growing steadily more anxious about being away from his partner for so long.

Eventually, later that same day, he gave in and went to see McCree through the one-way window. He looked awful, to be blunt: dark rings under his eyes, unkempt hair and unshaven face, bandages still wrapped around the side of his head and where his right eye had been before Angela removed the implants. The way he was sitting on his bed with his knees drawn to his chest made him look small, bruised, and tired.

Hanzo laid his hand on the glass, then his forehead, as if he was trying to phase through the glass and join his partner inside his cell.

Movement eventually caught his gaze, but it wasn't McCree. To Hanzo's shock and terror, his spirit dragons had manifested themselves within the confines of McCree's room, drifting through the glass wall and over towards the wounded man. Hanzo sputtered out a curse and very nearly pounded on the window as Angela's words about McCree not being completely well yet knocked him upside the head. 

At first, McCree didn't notice them as he stared off into space. It was hard to miss the two vibrant blue, noodle-like creatures floating in mid-air, however; he blinked, then reared back so violently that he nearly flew off the bed.

Hanzo sucked in a breath, bracing himself for the likely fact that McCree would be too traumatized to interact with the dragons on the same level as he had before. He had every right to be afraid of them after what they did to him, even if it was in his best interest.

To Hanzo's immense relief, the shocked expression on McCree's face bled away, replaced by a watery, nervous grin as he reached out for the dragons, welcoming them into his space. Hanzo couldn't hear what McCree said to them as they came closer and wrapped themselves around his shoulders, but he could read lips just fine.

"Thank you," the gunslinger said, leaning his cheek against one of the rippling coils. "Tell your daddy I said the same, yeah?

Hanzo sniffed and blinked back the sudden prickling sensation in his eyes. "You fool," he choked out, letting his head fall back against the window.

One more day passed before he got his wish to see McCree without a glass wall between them. Angela finally gave them all the go-ahead to come visit McCree in person. As eager as they were to see him, they were all in unanimous agreement that they should go in one at a time so they wouldn’t overwhelm him, and that Hanzo should have the first honors.

Grateful, Hanzo stepped into McCree’s room. The man was conscious and sitting upright in his bed; he sensed Hanzo’s presence and turned to look at him, no doubt expecting to find Angela standing there. Immediately a smile graced his face and his lips moved as if to say his name, but reality seized him, freezing him in time. At once a myriad of other emotions flashed across his face - regret, anger, sadness. A part of Hanzo had been hoping that McCree wouldn’t remember anything from his short stay in Talon's clutches, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

“Darlin’,” McCree rasped, bottom lip trembling as he gazed at his lover through his one wide, pained eye. “Darlin’, I-I…”

Hanzo knew exactly what he was thinking and was quick to dash those poisonous thoughts to the ground. “No,” he said, striding forward.

“No?” McCree echoed as Hanzo climbed onto the bed with him and yanked him back down onto the pillows.

“No,” Hanzo confirmed, drawing the other man close. He wrapped his arms around his middle and nuzzled his face into his chest, breathing in the musky, familiar scent he found there beneath the typical hospital aroma. The cold metal on McCree’s spine was different, but Hanzo was sure that he would get used to it. They both would.

He sighed. “Welcome home, Jesse.”

McCree shuddered wetly and finally returned the hug, burying his face in Hanzo’s hair. “So good to be home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Come find me on tumblr, too. Thanks for reading!


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